Demand for wireless broadband data is ever increasing. High geometry experienced by a User Equipment (UE) in some Long Term Evolution Advance (LTE-A) compliant small cell deployments provide the possibility for using a higher order modulation scheme (e.g., a 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) scheme) for the downlink transmission. However, support of the additional higher order modulation scheme requires some changes in the existing downlink control signaling.